Eternal Dawn: Turkey in the Age of Ataturk.

• Author: Bolat, Sevde

In Eternal Dawn: Turkey in the Age of Ataturk, Ryan Gingeras deals with the origins of modern Turkey and its founder, Atatiirk. Studies of this subject have never been scarce in the literature. Unlike most of the previous works in the literature, Gingeras argues that the image of Atatiirk and his reforms lose their magnificence when you take a closer look at his era. The author claims that the reforms and developments of Atatiirks regime have been over-glorified and that the realities of the re-establishment of the Turkish Republic are not congruent with the triumphant rhetoric surrounding it. In Eternal Dawn, Gingeras promises readers a different approach with his sharp, objective perspective. He points out that other published works on this topic tend to overlook the different social groups of Anatolia in the grand scheme of events. Gingeras claims that his focus is not solely on Atatiirk and his reforms, but also on how these groups reacted to the changes Atatiirk introduced.

The first chapter takes the story back to the foundation of the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, CUP) and the road to the 1908 Revolution. Similar to most works dealing with modern Turkey, Gingeras begins his work with the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. Since Ataturk and other important figures of modern Turkey had been affected by the final years of the Empire, Gingeras argues that one should take the origins and ideology of the Young Turks into account. In this chapter, Gingeras also evaluates CUP's leadership's views on Ataturk's rise to power in Ankara and the position the CUP assumed during the National Struggle, a subject long debated among scholars. Gingeras argues that while Ankara and the exiled CUP leaders kept somewhat in touch during the National Struggle, by 1921, the CUP leaders had found themselves alienated from the Ankara government.

The second chapter deals with World War I (WWI) and the National Struggle in great detail. Here, Gingeras evaluates the conflicts and struggles among different political and military leaders of Ankara, both during and after the National Struggle. He also highlights the place Ataturk held in the CUP organization during the foundation, rise, and decline of the group. Gingeras argues that despite Ataturk's various statements claiming that he did not play an essential part in the CUP organization, he was still an important part of the CUP and owed most of his network, which played a key...